State of the Oceans — Log 105
YOUR WEEKLY BRIEFING FROM PARLEY
This image by Dave Hoefler. Header image by Valeriia Bugaiova.
THE ARCTIC
The“sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” are now awakening across the Arctic, according to new research. Preliminary findings from a study by an international group of scientists shows rapid warming is causing frozen methane deposits to release across large areas off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian reports. Methane has a warming effect 80 times stronger than carbon dioxide over 20 years. The potent greenhouse gas has been detected down to a depth of 350 meters in the Laptev Sea near Russia, an alarming indicator that a new climate feedback loop may have been triggered that could accelerate the pace of global heating. The United States Geological Survey has previously listed Arctic hydrate destabilization as one of the four most serious scenarios for abrupt climate change.
CORAL
Scientists on a 12-month expedition have discovered a new reef structure at the northern tip of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, near Cape York - and it’s enormous. The discovery is the first of its kind in over 120 years. With its tallest peak roughly 130 feet below the ocean’s surface, the 1600-foot-tall coral structure dwarfs even some the world's most iconic skyscrapers, including New York City’s Empire State Building and the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The towering structure was discovered on Oct. 20 by Australian scientists aboard a research vessel from the Schmidt Ocean Institute. A live-streamed robotic dive offered close-up views of structure, a reminder of how little we know of the oceans.
PLASTIC POLLUTION
A new IUCN report finds that an estimated 229,000 metric tons of plastic is leaking into the Mediterranean Sea every year, equivalent to over 500 shipping containers each day. Unless significant measures are taken to address mismanaged waste, the main source of the leakage, this number will at least double by 2040. Estimating plastic fluxes from 33 countries around the Mediterranean basin, the report finds that macro-plastics resulting from mismanaged waste make up 94% of the total plastic leakage. Once washed into the sea, plastic mostly settles in the sediments in the form of microplastics (particles smaller than 5mm). The report estimates that more than one million tons of plastic have accumulated in the Mediterranean Sea.
INNOVATION
A fleet of 500 robotic probes will be deployed to the depths of the ocean to monitor global warming’s impact on microscopic marine life and ocean chemistry. Photosynthesizing microbes in seawater produce more than half of the planet’s oxygen and slow climate change by capturing an estimated 25% of the carbon dioxide released from humanity’s emissions, but little is known about how rising temperatures will alter vital marine ecosystems. The National Science Foundation (NSF) will spend $53 million to fund the new floats, marking the first major expansion of the Argo array, a set of 4000 floats that has tracked rising ocean temperatures for 15 years. Susan Wijffels, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution stated, “What’s happening out there? We have no idea really... this is going to be revolutionary."
POLICY
Japan and South Korea both announced ambitious plans to go carbon-neutral by 2050. Meanwhile, with Election Day fast-approaching in the US, the Trump administration moved to strip protections from “America’s last climate sanctuary,” exempting Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The rule prohibits logging of trees in the forest, construction of new roads going through the forest, and reconstruction on existing roads that go through the forest (with certain exceptions) in a 9 million-acre area of the forest. Called “the lungs of North America”, the Tongass spans more than 25,000 square miles (64,750 sq km) in southeast Alaska and is one of the largest, intact temperate rain forests in the world.
… and in more new discoveries
What greater tribute to your legacy than a sea slug named in your honor? A newly discovered species of nudibranch has been named Cadlina sylviaearleae, after Parley collaborator and legendary oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle.
And on the other spectrum, NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has recently detected water molecules on the sunlit surface of the moon, proving what scientists have theorized for years — the moon is wet.
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